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cdahal
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I am currently reading this "the easy way" physics textbook. I have this problem to be kind of confusing. The confusion I have is posted below:
Question A: You drive a car 45 miles in a direction north 30 Degree West. How much farther west are you ?
Explanation for answer is given like this: 45cos(60deg) = 22.5 = 23 m farther to west.
Question B: A sailor's compass says that the ship is traveling North 55 degree West and the ship sextant says that at the end of 6.0 hours the ship is 35 miles farther north. How fast is he going?
Explanation for answer is given like this: displacement = 35cos(55deg) mi = 61 mile
So my question is why is there 45cos(60deg) ? why not 45cos(30deg) ? and why in the second question, there is 35cos(55deg). For the first one 30 deg is given not 60 and second one it uses same 55 deg as given why? can you clarify this to me? thank you so much everything. This is my first question in this fourm
Question A: You drive a car 45 miles in a direction north 30 Degree West. How much farther west are you ?
Explanation for answer is given like this: 45cos(60deg) = 22.5 = 23 m farther to west.
Question B: A sailor's compass says that the ship is traveling North 55 degree West and the ship sextant says that at the end of 6.0 hours the ship is 35 miles farther north. How fast is he going?
Explanation for answer is given like this: displacement = 35cos(55deg) mi = 61 mile
So my question is why is there 45cos(60deg) ? why not 45cos(30deg) ? and why in the second question, there is 35cos(55deg). For the first one 30 deg is given not 60 and second one it uses same 55 deg as given why? can you clarify this to me? thank you so much everything. This is my first question in this fourm